


The Sketchbook

by Higgystar



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Kink Meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1740308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Higgystar/pseuds/Higgystar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from the kink meme: Daryl is an artist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sketchbook

Things are different with Merle around the prison, if only because he suddenly had someone there who knew exactly who he was. He’d done his best this entire time to keep his private life to himself, not really wanting to share anything about his life before the walkers with anyone, except for small things he let slip from time to time. But now in the middle of all of it he had someone who knew pretty much everything about him joining the group and really it shouldn’t have surprised him quite as much as it did when Merle decides to barge in and begin bringing up things he’d kept to himself.

“Well look at what I found baby brother, hidden in the bottom of all your things, almost as if you were trying to hide it away from me.” Merle comes up with a grin on his face, clutching his prize in his good hand and looking pleased with himself. Daryl groans a little at seeing what he’s got, automatically trying to reach across his brother when Merle sits next to him and snatch away the leather bound book from him.

“Come on Merle give it back.” He knows it’s fruitless, Merle always gets what he wants and he didn’t for a second think now would be any different, especially not when he had an audience. “Look at it later.”

Merle snickers, leaning out of his way and keeping the book well out of his reach, shoving him back into his seat with a laugh and a grin. “I’d much rather look at it now. Heck it’s been ages since I saw you last, I figure I’ve got lots to catch up on.”

“Going through Daryl’s diary now?” Beth giggles from her seat, bouncing baby Judith on her lap as the little girl drools over herself happily, watching her brother clean his gun on the tabletop before her. Carl reaches over every so often to stroke over her chubby fist, Beth keeping her upright as Judith seemed to enjoy watching Carl play with the shiny metal.

“I ain’t got no diary!” Daryl snaps, offended at the thought of such a thing, he weren’t no girl that needed to right down his woes into some dumb book.

“Better.” His brother can’t seem to stop smiling, relaxing a little when Daryl slumps back into his seat, giving up on fighting anymore and just letting Merle do what he wanted as usual. Sometimes it was easier to just let his brother get what he wanted and give in to the ridicule that was about to happen. He wasn’t looking forward to this at all. “My little brother’s sketchbook.”

“His what?”

“I didn’t know Daryl could draw.”

“You didn’t?” And Merle gives him a sidelong glance, taking his shrug as an answer and scoffing a little as he opened the damned thing. “He’s one talented son of a bitch when you give him a pencil.”

Daryl tries to focus on anything else, cleaning his bow, checking his arrows and just trying his best not to look up and see the mockery on Carl and Beth’s faces when they saw his work. Merle always fucking did this, looking over his work as if he knew what the fuck he was on about and showing it off for the world to see even if he preferred it to be kept just between the two of them. Merle could be a right dick when he wanted to be. “Ain’t no big deal Merle.” He mutters, trying to ignore Merle flicking through the pages to find his latest work, unable to stop from glancing over as drawings so familiar to him flick by. “Not like there’s much time for something so useless nowadays.”

Merle shrugs, focussed on the pages before him and pausing when he finds something new to inspect. Some pages are full on works, details covering every inch of paper to bring the image to life, others pages are mixes of sketches, plans, thought out doodles and experiments with poses in the corners. After a set point there’s no colour anymore, when supplies weren’t exactly worth the weight they were to carry anymore and he’d had to make do with a pencil and nothing more. Not that he minded, he preferred working in pencil to be honest, there was something basic in working with nothing more than one piece of lead that worked for him.

“Ain’t useless.” His brother mutters, running his finger over the edge of a page and fucking smiling at what he sees. Only it’s not Merle’s crooked grin, but an actual smile, one that spoke of pride and being impressed. It wasn’t a look he was exactly used to from his brother so maybe he’ll take it just this once and try to remember what it looked like for later on. “Told you you was good at this shit. Could have gone to college you know?”

“Yeah as if that were ever an option.” He scoffs, uncaring for the thought of it. They could never have afforded it anyway and besides, he didn’t do it for no one else, or for grades and recognition, it was something he did for himself. Even if Merle didn’t get that and had to show it off. “Seen enough yet? Told you I ain’t had time to do much since you been gone.”

It’s true, since Merle had up and left again he’d only managed a few pages worth of work, and honestly they weren’t finished and he knew Merle wouldn’t appreciate the content anyway. It wasn’t like he ever really though about what he drew, the images weren’t planned or anything, he just went with what felt right. “Now hold on a minute, you got an audience here that want to see.” Merle smirks and holds open the last few filled pages, looking over the portraits of the group he’d managed to capture over time.

“Merle…” Christ his brother was frustrating but he didn’t even bother trying to stop him from sliding the sketchbook across the table to the kids, he could see where they’d been trying to look at his work upside down. As soon as it’s within their grasp they’re eagerly flipping through from the beginning, making noises of delight from everything they see and embarrassing him even more. “Ain’t nothing.” He shrugs, folding his arms and slumping over the table to lean on them, watching the kids and even baby Judith enjoy the colours.

“Daryl these are amazing!” Beth is smiling, a proper smile full of life and joy as she gazes at his work. He’s not exactly proud of it all, there are a few pieces he likes how they turned out, but a lot of it isn’t anywhere near good enough for anyone to really look at. Giving a shrug he hates that he can feel the flush on his cheeks and how Merle snickers next to him. “You really are talented.”

Carl nods beside her, going through each page slowly, taking the time to actually scan through each page even if it was nothing more than quick sketches and blocky figures in poses. It makes him feel uncomfortable when they start to get near the end, each of them giving small murmurs of delight and praise over everything they see. “That’s enough, give it back.”

“Not finished yet, I wanna see it all.” Carl grins to him, young and intrigued by something so stupid in the world they lived in now. He feels the clench of unease in his chest as they get to the sketches of the group, of those from the quarry, of those they had lost and those whose deaths were too close to be remembered right now. Even Merle tenses a little beside him, his brother may have no tact, but when Carl turns the page and freezes when Daryl’s drawing of Lori greets him, he figures even Merle remembers the pain of losing a mother.

It’s nothing special, just a pencil drawing and honestly he doesn’t feel as if he’s captured the life of her properly in the work at all. He’d seen her at Hershel’s farm, just sitting beneath the shade of the tree and enjoying a few moments of peace, it was before they even knew she was pregnant with Lil Asskicker, and she’d just looked as if she felt there was a future, if only for a moment. It hadn’t taken him long to sketch out the basics of her face, to capture the look of contentment there, how there had been no worry in her eyes or tension around her lips. Her hair framed her face perfectly, dark and waving in the slight breeze as he’d tried to replicate the image as best he could. Carl’s finger lingers on the page for a moment, Beth places a hand on his shoulder gently and then it’s over and he’s turning the page quickly.

They continue going through it all, leaving him feeling on edge as they praise his work, Merle nodding along with the comments and nudging at his side when it’s clear he’s not interested in them. “Hey Judy look it’s you!” Carl is smiling again, lifting the book to show the image of the sleeping baby to his sister. Beth bounces her and for some reason they try to explain the greyscale image on the paper is meant to be a rendering of her. Judith doesn’t seem mightily impressed, instead she’s more than happy to chew and drool over her own fist.

There’s more images of them all. Some are merely portraits, nothing more than a head and shoulders sketch of members of their group but he’s pleased that Carl is able to name them all easily, clearly he had caught their likeness well enough. Some of the full body sketches stood out to him as moments in time, caught in the middle of the end of the world and something to cling onto when everything else was going to hell. Dale leaning over the front of the RV with that dumb hat on as he tried to make it work, Jim at his side and looking perplexed at the whole thing. Merle sitting at the campfire with a skinning knife and a dead squirrel draped over his knee as he prepared them all some food for the night. Shane strutting about with that shotgun over his shoulder. Andrea and Amy leaning on each other, close and together, thick as thieves. Jacqui sitting with T-Dog, the two of them smiling over a shared joke.

Through his sketches you could tell the passage of time, as some members faded from existence and others joined the fray. An image of Rick from behind, standing with his hands on his hips and that hat perched on his head. Later images have Carl wearing it instead, looking young but harsh as he points a gun. Carol sitting with Sophia, holding her little girl close as her daughter holds her doll tightly. Glenn looking over at Maggie with that look in his eye. Hershel pressing a kiss to Beth’s hair and smiling lightly. Michonne cleaning that damned sword. And interspersed with all of them were pictures of Merle.

Unlike everyone else he didn’t need the subject before him to sketch out his brother, Merle was his most used model, someone he knew so well he didn’t need to see him to translate his image onto paper. Sometimes it was just something small, a quick sketch of his body type or a pose of Merle throwing a punch at someone or something. Other times it was a whole page of just Merle’s face and that stupid fucking grin he wore most of the time when he was being a cocky bastard. Daryl sometimes wondered if Merle only liked to go through his sketchbook because he was the most vain bastard he’d ever met, despite being an ugly fuck.

When the kids are finished he’s grateful to get the book slid back to him and not Merle, instantly snapping it shut and wrapping his arms around the thing. “Told you before there ain’t no need for you to be so shy about it all.” Merle scoffs, grinning because yet again he’d gotten his own way and managed to make a fool of him at the same time. “They’re damned good little brother.”

He shrugs, keeping the sketchbook close to his chest, letting his thumb run over the leaf of the pages, smudging the pad of it with pencil remnants and not caring. It’s not that he didn’t like his work, they just weren’t finished and some of them never would be. Besides, it wasn’t like he made his art for anyone else, it was just something he enjoyed doing from time to time.

“They’re really amazing Daryl.” Beth smiles sweetly with a nod, clearly trying to make him feel at ease even if he never knows exactly what to do with the praise when it’s pointed in his direction. “I wish I was that talented.”

“You’ve got to do more though Daryl.” Carl shrugs, still smiling brightly as he pieces together his gun again, sliding it back into his holster as he explains himself. “I mean you’ve got pictures of almost everyone in the family, but there’s none of yourself. You should do a self portrait sometime to make it complete.”

He snorts at that, rising from the table and ignoring when Merle agrees with the stupid idea. “Don’t matter about me.” He scoffs, wanting to just bury the damned book down at the bottom of his things again and forget it was there. “Ain’t meant to be seen by anyone else anyway, so it don’t matter if there’s pictures of me, I know what I look like.” He shrugs, leaving them to sit and continue talking about his work as he stalks back up to the perch, aiming to bury the book somewhere even Merle wouldn’t even bother to look.

His artwork was just for him anyway, he didn’t do it for anyone else so it didn’t matter that there was no image of him on any of the pages, besides the thought of studying his own face and trying to get it onto paper seemed too difficult. Daryl much preferred his subjects to be unknowing, to look natural and real when he tried to capture them and besides since it was just for him he could draw what he wanted in his own sketchbook. It wasn’t like it was meant for anyone else.

It doesn’t stop him from tearing out the page where he’d drawn Lori looking content beneath the tree and leaving it on Carl’s bunk for him to keep.


End file.
